Julian Koster put together the best tour of 2008: The Elephant Six Holiday Surprise Tour. This show was basically The Music Tapes, Olivia Tremor Control, Circulatory System, Elf Power, The Gerbils, and Nana Grizol doing a round robin switching off songs, and giving the performance of the year. Everyone was in good spirits, and looked truly happy to be making music. It was a magical event, and it was preceded by a showing of the Elephant Six movie: Major Organ and the Adding Machine (see trailer below). I didn’t have the most ideal location for the screening of the movie, but what I was able to see was great…and I have been listening to the sound track ever since. Jeff Mangum was even at the show, sang back up on a couple songs, was too shy to come out and sing a Neutral Milk Hotel song when Julian played it, and started a beard grabbing fight over a microphone with the singer of the Gerbils during an Olivia Tremor Control song (I assume this was all in good fun). It was a pretty phenomenal night.
Julian then did a Christmas Caroling tour, where he played peoples houses and the location was only announced to people that contacted Julian directly. This sounded wonderful, but I didn’t get to see the show.
Now Julian and his Music Tapes are going on tour again (third tour since last fall)…and instead of bringing some new upcoming band on tour with them…they are bringing the newish upcoming Elephant Six band Nana Grizol on tour with them!
For anyone unfamiliar with the Music Tapes it is Julian Koster (who played in Neutral Milk Hotel), a 7-foot-tall metronome, Static the Television (yes, a talking television), the Clapping Hands Machine, and other creations and people making wonderful pop music based around the singing saw and banjo.
When I saw the Elephant Six Surprise Tour there was one guy, he was cute with curly dark hair, and he sang one of the last songs that they played at the Knitting Factory…I went to the merch table and was asking about the records. Typically the person at the merch table doesn’t know a whole lot about the what they are selling, but this woman knew about all of the records, and pointed me toward the Nana Grizol record!
The cute boy with curly dark hair was Theo Hilton, the front man for Nana Grizol. The rest of Nana Grizol is a revolving cast of Elephant Six musicians. If I would have known that their album Love It, Love It came out in 2008 it probably would have made my best of list (it’s too late now for revisions), but when I bought the record I thought I was behind the times and didn’t even think that it could be new (until writing this post). Nana Grizol make fun indie rock, and they do it better than a lot of the better known acts out there. Theo’s backing horn section is comprised of Laura Carter and Robbie Cucchiaro, both of whom also played with Neutral Milk Hotel. Nana Grizol also helps run Orange Twin Records.
Music Tapes and Nana Grizol will also be accompanied by Brain Dewan (musician and artists). Dewan has worked with many people over the years (Seasame Street, Music Tapes, They Might be Giants) and created album art for They Might be Giants and David Byrne among others. There is a video of Dewan and Koster playing together below.
Music Tapes, Nana Grizol and Brian Dewan will be playing at the Bell House on Tuesday March 3rd, 2009 (more tour dates below). Get Tickets for the Bell House show here!
Trailer for Major Organ and the Adding Machine
The Music Tapes- “Majesty”
The Music Tapes-”Minister of Longitude”
Nana Grizol’s Pink Couch Session
Rumpelstiltskin played by Brian Dewan & Julian Koster (thanks to Lucy Ross for the link)
The Music Tapes w/ Nana Grizol and Brian Dewan – Tour Dates for 2009
2/10 Austin, TX Mohawk
2/11 Norman, OK The Opolis
2/13 Tucson, AZ Solar Culture Gallery
2/15 Los Angeles, CA Echoplex
2/17 San Francisco, CA Bottom of the Hill
2/19 Seattle, WA The Vera Project
2/20 Anacortes, WA Department of Safety
2/21 Portland, OR Backspace
2/24 Minneapolis, MN 7th Street Entry
2/25 Chicago, IL AV-aerie
2/26 Ann Arbor, MI The B-side
2/27 Toronto, ON Lee’s Palace
2/28 Buffalo, NY Big Orbit’s Soundlab
3/1 Hoboken, NJ Maxwell’s
3/2 Cambridge, MA Middle East Upstairs
3/3 Brooklyn, NY The Bellhouse
3/4 Philadelphia, PA First Unitarian Church – Basement
3/5 Carrboro, NC Cat’s Cradle
3/7 Athens, GA 40 Watt
Photo of Static the Television via Decider Chicago
also Music Tapes made one of my favorite albums of 2008.
